Time Will Tell
by moonshadow2012
Summary: "Let's time travel and save the world," he said. "It'll be fun," he said. Well, waking up alone on a building in Las Vegas of the past is NOT FUN, BARRY. Or; How Oliver and Felicity Became Uniquely Qualified to Talk About Time Loops. WARNINGS: Mentions of suicide.
1. Chapter 1

**Time Will Tell**

Oliver sat up, cursing time travel and Rip Hunter and Barry's puppy eyes when he said, "But it'll be _fun_ , Ollie!" _Well, Barry, waking up with a migraine on a strange building with no idea how you got there is not fun._ Not fun at all.

Stumbling over to the side of the building, the Green Arrow took in the bright neon lights of a city that smelled like gasoline, alcohol, and cigarettes. Thanks to his youthful revelry, he could tell where he was immediately. After all, he knew first hand that what happened in Vegas almost never stayed in Vegas.

"Flash?" He called, tapping his earpiece. "White Canary? Atom?"

No one answered. Not that he'd expected them to. (He didn't have much faith in technology if Felicity wasn't behind it.)

"Mind if I join you?"

Oliver blinked in surprise, whirling to face the intruder who had somehow managed to sneak up on him. Embarrassingly enough, it was a young girl. If he hadn't been frozen with shock, the Felicity in the back of his mind might have offered up the girl's abnormally skinny form as a possible excuse. But he was frozen because under the bottle-black hair and the heavy, smeared makeup, the puffy, red eyes and the nose ring was absolutely, unmistakably, Felicity Smoak.

Felicity Smoak, who gave a little snort when she saw his suit. "Nice get up." Felicity Smoak, who shivered in her thin, long-sleeved black shirt and strolled forward until she was next to Oliver, close enough to touch. Felicity Smoak, who hopped up onto the edge of the building and swung her arms back and forth like she was getting ready to leap off.

"What are you doing?" Oliver blurted.

Felicity – this dark, broken Felicity shaking with cold or maybe fear or maybe rage – snapped her head towards him. "What do you care, Robin Hood? It's a free rooftop."

"I just do. I just do care." Oliver cursed internally. He wished more than anything that Barry or Ray was here instead of him. He wasn't good at this whole making-people-see-their-true-worth thing. Felicity was the best at it. If only Felicity was here…then again, she was.

"Why?" Her eyes narrowed suspiciously and she shuffled away from him. It took everything he had not to lunge out and drag her away from the edge, but he knew that if he did he would only scare her more. Or worse, "confirm" her fear that he was some sort of weird predator.

"Because I…you're important, Felicity. You have so much potential. You can't do this." He pleaded, letting his hands drift forward, open and surrendering.

A flicker passed over her face. "How do you know my name?"

Oliver's mind raced. A million different excuses readied themselves, but when he looked into Felicity's face all he could see was the hurt that had consumed her when she found out he'd kept his son a secret from her. And all he could hear was her whispering, _"I can't do this."_

"Because I know you, Felicity." He had no idea where he was going with this, but he knew this was the only way to save her. If he lied, she would find out and everything he'd meant when he convinced her to step away from the edge would be for nothing. "I know this sounds crazy – and it is. But I do know you. Or…I will." He swallowed hard. "Please, just trust me."

"You're crazy." She murmured, backing away. But Oliver could see a tiny flame of doubt start to burn in her eyes.

"I'm not." He took a careful step towards her. "You're the smartest person you've ever known. You've been building computers since you were nine. You'll never admit it, but you love when your mom makes you hot milk. You're terrified that all you'll ever end up as is a waitress. You love pandas and ice cream and you want to change the world. You…"

Felicity was shaking and covering her mouth with her hand. A hand that had a promise ring wrapped around a finger. And suddenly, everything made sense.

"Your boyfriend just committed suicide in prison and you blame yourself." Oliver breathed.

"How do you know that? How do you know all of that?" Tears were running down her face and her voice was breaking with brimming hysteria.

"Because you told me. Or…you will tell me. One day." He took another step forward, bracing his legs to lunge if she slipped or collapsed. "You saved my life, Felicity. I can't lose you – not when we haven't even met yet. Without you, I wouldn't even be here. You changed everything. You showed me how to be a hero."

"What are you talking about?" Felicity choked. "I've never seen you before in my life."

"I know this sounds insane. I know." Oliver said. "But I'm from the future. You're going to do great things, Felicity Smoak. You're going to mean the world to so many people and save so many lives. I can't do this without you." He took a deep break and looked straight into her eyes. "Your name, 'Felicity,' means 'happiness.' And that's what you are to me. You're my happiness. So please…please let me help you find yours."


	2. Chapter 2

_Now, to honor the memory of my friend, I can't be the criminal I once was._

 _I have to become someone else. Some_ thing _else._

Felicity's life ended that night, on the rooftop, with the man in green holding out a hand to help her. She stepped off the edge of the building and let herself die. It wasn't in the way she'd planned when she'd left the apartment that night, but it was a death all the same.

After she let him help her down, the man in the green hood sat with her for two hours on the roof. She talked about Cooper and everything that had happened, and he just listened. It was nice not to be told that she had to be brave and that it wasn't her fault; that Cooper made his own decision and she couldn't have done anything. The green man seemed to understand that hearing those things wouldn't make the guilt or pain go away.

"What are you going to do now?"

She shrugged. "Go back to MIT, I guess. Graduate, like I planned. Get out of this city for good." She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "Where will I find you?"

It was dark, but she swore she saw a smirk under the green hood of his. "Don't worry about that." He reassured her. "I'll find you."

Felicity Smoak was a smart girl. She knew exactly how improbable time travel was and how unlikely the hooded man's story was to be true. But whoever he was, whatever asylum he'd escaped from, he was the only one standing between her and that ledge. He was the only one who'd offered her any hope for any kind of future.

She didn't let go of his hand until he had to leave. Some guy in a red suit appeared on the other side of the roof, and the green man told her that he had to go.

"I'll see you soon, Felicity." He said.

"How soon?" She whispered, her throat suddenly dry.

He leaned down and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She could feel his whiskers scratch against her skin. "I can't tell you that." He murmured. "I'd ruin the surprise."

And then he was gone.

So, Felicity went back to college. She dyed her hair blonde and traded her contacts for a pair of glasses. She graduated. She moved to Starling City. She started working for Queen Consolidated. She bought herself panda flats. And she waited for the man in green.

Sometimes, she drew pictures of him. She wanted to be able to recognize him when he found her. On the off chance he was telling the truth about time travel, of course. It was getting harder and harder to believe he had been telling the truth, and less and less important to her survival. So, it didn't really matter. Whoever he was, he'd saved her life. Someday she would find him and thank him, no matter if time travel was involved or not.

As for now, she was much stronger than she had been. She hadn't self-medicated since the first anniversary of Cooper's death and she barely touched alcohol. She successful and happy in a way she hadn't known existed. Being unable to date more than a handful of times because she was still a little bit in love with a guy who cosplayed as Robin Hood and whose name she didn't even know was a small price to pay. Kind of. (She wouldn't deny that she was still a work in progress.)

She was watching the news one night when the first report about the vigilante aired. She dropped her ice cream and stared at the television. It was a thirty-second blip of story, and she didn't even hear all of it. She was too busy seeing the man on top of the building begging her to live.

" _You're my happiness."_

When she finally came to, she blessed herself for getting a DVR as she rewound the clip. She played it over and over again. She printed off the police sketch and tucked it in her super-secret place. It was him. It had to be.

" _I'll find you."_

She was a fast worker. Anything that took her peers hours to do took her minutes. Meaning she had a lot of free time to scour the web for any mention of the man in green. "The Hood," as they were calling him. But the description of a serial killer definitely didn't fit the man who had saved her life. Maybe there were two of them..?

When Oliver Queen walked into her office, she thought she was screwed for sure. After all, the boss's future son-in-law paying you a personal visit after you've been using company resources to fangirl over a serial killer is never a good sign. Luckily for her, Oliver was about as concerned about proper use of resources as she was if the undoubtedly-illegally-obtained laptop was any indicator. And he either didn't notice or didn't mention the website detailing the Hood's latest attack that she closed instinctively on his entry.

On a side note, if she thought Oliver was cute in that picture, the real deal was breathtaking. (Not that she was ogling.) And she could see he was hurting, in a way she'd been hurting before. She wished she knew how to help him, but she wasn't like the man in green; she didn't know what to say, and even if she did she'd probably mess it up with her babbling. When the man in green found her, maybe she'd tell him about Oliver and he could save him, too.

And then Oliver was in the backseat of her car, bleeding and looking out of an all-too-familiar hood, and everything made sense. Well, almost everything.

He was nothing like he'd been when she met him the first time. All he wanted to do was kill those people – he didn't care about being a hero at all. She tried to quit, tried to get away, but...she saw him. Once in a while, he would look at her and she knew that deep down, there was a hero inside of him. Underneath all the pain and self-loathing and guilt, there was someone worth fighting for. (And maybe that was what he'd been thinking when he found her on that roof.)

So Felicity stayed and fought for Oliver. He wasn't who he had been (or maybe who he would be) but that was okay. He was still worth it all. She wasn't sure when, but along the way her schoolgirl crush on a vague, distant hero took a backseat to her growing love for a strong, selfless man. And it was better. Much better, because even though Oliver didn't want to be with her, he was more real than he had ever been and just being near him made her feel like what she was doing mattered in a way that nothing she'd ever done had mattered before.

She knew, somehow, that loving Oliver was something she would do for the rest of her life, even if they weren't meant to be. He was her happiness, too, even when he broke her heart.

When Oliver mentioned that he and Barry were going to join Rip Hunter's group to search for Vandal Savage in the past, Felicity had almost entirely forgotten about the man on the roof. So she wasn't expecting Oliver to knock on her door in the middle of the night, especially not so soon after their broken engagement. Still, she would always open the door for him.

His face was unreadable, filled with so much confusion and emotion that she wasn't sure whether to hug him or call Barry and ask for the antidote to whatever had poisoned him. His next words answered that question for her.

"You knew all along, didn't you?"

 _What's a soulmate?_

 _It's uh…well, it's like a best friend, but more. It's the one person in the world that knows you better than anyone else. It's someone who makes you a better person. Actually, they don't make you a better person, you do that yourself because they inspire you._


End file.
